The following sentence has been divided into four segments. Identify the segment in which the article has been used INCORRECTLY. UNESCO works to / strengthen an intellectual / and moral solidarity / of humankind.

Correct — A. The article being tested is an, and it is the only article printed anywhere in the sentence, so the faulty segment must be the one that holds it → option (a).

The noun it governs is solidarity, which is uncountable. Uncountable nouns take no a or an.

The phrase is also pinned down by of humankind, which identifies which solidarity is meant, and a noun identified that way takes the definite article.

The correct reading is: UNESCO works to strengthen the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind.

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  of humankind. — of humankind carries no article at all, and needs none. Far from being the error, it is the phrase that makes the definite article necessary back in segment (a).
• (c)
  and moral solidarity — and moral solidarity holds the second adjective and the head noun, and no article. One article governs both adjectives of a pair, and that article was already placed in segment (a).
• (d)
  UNESCO works to — UNESCO works to contains a proper noun and the infinitive marker to. A name like UNESCO takes no article in this position, so nothing here can be wrong.

Three questions settle almost every article item. Is the noun countable? Is it already identified? Is it a name?

Solidarity is a mass noun, so a and an are out. It is then identified by the following of-phrase, so the is in. A and an mark one of a countable class, while the marks the one both writer and reader can pick out.

A fourth point decides where the article goes: when two adjectives modify one noun, a single article stands before the first of them. That is why an sits in segment (a) although solidarity sits in segment (c).

Key facts

• Solidarity is an uncountable noun and takes no a or an.
• A noun made specific by a following of-phrase normally takes the definite article the.
• When two adjectives modify one noun, one article stands before the first adjective and covers both.

Common traps

• Marking segment (c) because it holds the noun, when the article at fault sits an earlier segment away.
• Accepting an because it correctly precedes a vowel sound, when the question is whether any a or an belongs at all.
• Missing that of humankind identifies the solidarity and therefore calls for the.

No directly related past PYQ was found.